doctor-who-key-fire

In the opening episode, the Doctor
kidnaps Susan’s schoolteachers so the travellers can avoid detection. His
ethical boundaries are tested again in the third episode as he makes to
bludgeon the injured caveman Za (Derek Newark) thereby unblocking the route to
escape, before bluffing, “I was going to get him to draw our way back to the TARDIS.”
It is the civilised teachers who intervene to protect Za but their liberal
humanism is neatly contextualised by the grim realisation that

Old Mother (Eileen Way) has been
slain by the ambitious, would-be-leader Kal (Jeremy Young). Perhaps it is the intercession
of modern morality that finally stirs the tribe people to see beyond the day-to-day
scuffle to survive, with all its attendant carnage and bloodshed, and recognise
the social value of munificence. Doesn’t Za become the mouthpiece of this philosophy
when he later counsels Hur (Alethea Charlton) “Listen to them, they do not
kill”? On the other hand, in rescuing Za, don’t the TARDIS crew put themselves
back into mortal danger? Beneath our civilised skins lies a dark and ruthless
past, one that doesn’t always respond to morality or reason.